The present inventions are related to systems and methods for determining either or both signal power and noise power derived from a received signal set.
Receiving information in a data transmission system is effected by various noise factors and is often expressed as a ratio of signal power to noise power. Such transmission systems may include, for example, wireless or wired data transmission systems where data is transferred from a transmission device to a receiving device, and data storage systems where data is transferred to a storage medium in a write operation and retrieved from the same storage medium in a read operation. Knowledge of signal power and noise power may be used in a number of aspects of such systems.
As an example, in a data storage system signal power and noise power can be determined by writing a pattern that is x bits long y times. The written data is then read back z times. This read back data is stored to a memory structure where it may be later accessed and used to perform a signal to noise ratio calculation. Such an approach yields a reasonable estimate of signal to noise ratio, however, it demands a large memory structure. In particular, the memory structure would be of a size x*y*z. In many situations, a large memory structure is impractical. To alleviate this memory requirement, one or more of x, y and z may be reduced. As the accuracy of the signal to noise estimate is reduced where the number of bits used to perform the estimate, the aforementioned approach results in a potential reduction in the accuracy of the signal to noise estimate.
Hence, for at least the aforementioned reasons, there exists a need in the art for advanced systems and methods for estimating signal power, noise power and/or a combination thereof.